


the deadliest things are found under microscopes

by celli-inkblots (thebeespatella)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Bad Pick-Up Lines, Blow Jobs, Explicit Language, M/M, Science Pick-Up Lines, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-05
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-06 23:09:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeespatella/pseuds/celli-inkblots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Oh!" Charles let out a startled little laugh that tugged at the edges of his mouth. Erik felt inexplicably drawn to the sound, pressing closer to Charles' shoulder. "Oh, Erik. I'm afraid you've experienced the biology student in its natural mating habitat."</i>
</p><div class="center">
  <p>--</p>
</div>Charles and Erik end up in Oxford. Erik is accosted by biology students at the local bar, and Charles comes to his rescue - after a fashion.
            </blockquote>





	the deadliest things are found under microscopes

**Author's Note:**

> So in a bit of a harddrive clean-up, I found this old bit of fic that was posted in the ABG AIM chat back when that thing still worked. I originally posted it as a "live-fic", but I brushed it off, fixed up some truly awful comma usage, and here it is.

"What did that student mean, back at the bar?" Erik asked, leaning comfortably against Charles's shoulder. It was warm and soft, a perfect counterpoint to the breeze swirling around them as they walked in the dark.

"Which one?" Charles was ambling along with his hands in his pockets, amber streetlights glancing off the angles in his face. Erik couldn't tell if it was the alcohol, but he seemed even more alive tonight. "You had many students coming up to you at the bar, Erik."

"Good thing I had a doctor to keep them away."

"Very funny, Erik," Charles said. "And you know I'm not a doctor, I have a _doctorate—_ " __

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. But what did they _mean_?" Erik pressed impatiently. "What were they saying—about...genes, and..."

"Oh!" Charles let out a startled little laugh that tugged at the edges of his mouth. Erik felt inexplicably drawn to the sound, pressing closer to Charles' shoulder. "Oh, Erik. I'm afraid you've experienced the biology student in its natural mating habitat."

"Stop talking like them," Erik groaned.

"They were pick-up lines," Charles said gently. He knew that Erik hated to be disabused of his ignorance—the fact that he had asked at all was more a testament to the amount of alcohol consumed rather than anything else.

"Pick-up - "

"Yes, pick-up lines. Although I daresay it works better on people who know what they're talking about."

Erik was silent.

Charles winced. "I didn't mean it like that, Erik. It's just...technical terms. Like if someone had tried to pick me up in German, I wouldn't—"

"No-one is going to try pick you up in German," Erik growled, walking faster.

"That's not the point, Erik," Charles said impatiently, struggling to keep up with Erik's longer strides. "The point is that they were—they were trying to—"

How to describe this process? How to describe exactly what went through your mind when you decided that yes, the Krebs cycle was _precisely_ what was going to get you laid that evening?

"They were just trying to—lure you in with their knowledge," Charles finished.

" _Lure me in with their knowledge_ ," Erik repeated.

"Yes, _lure you in_. You see, it's been proven that in this day and age, intelligence is far more important a factor in selecting a mate than—"

"Charles."

"Yes, Erik?"

"I think I understand what you mean. Essentially, they thought that they would impress me with their extensive knowledge of biology."

He couldn't tell what Erik is thinking—in the streetlight, even the tender lines of his mouth are still.

"But you see, Charles," Erik drawled, as they walked on. "I don't think any of them _really know_ their biology. If you know what I—"

"Yes, Erik, I know what you mean," Charles said loudly, flapping his hands and trying to avoid any images of any students in any sort of position aside from sitting neatly in lecture. Clothes firmly _on._ __

"Because if they knew—" Erik stopped suddenly, and Charles lurched forward unsteadily. His vision swam with the dark and the beer and suddenly Erik's face was _very_ close to his own and he could see every single one of those teeth glinting—

"If they knew, they would recognize _raw sexual attraction_ ," Erik said, voice low, and Charles felt himself swallow.

"Raw sexual attraction?" Charles found himself saying. "Raw sexual attraction is often determined by compatibility between two people's immune systems. The more varied they are, the more attraction—it's nature's way of developing—"

Erik was looking down at him with the oddest expression—head cocked to the side, eyes narrowed with something like affection.

"It's nature's way of..."

"Charles," Erik murmured, steadying him and then standing up straight himself. "I think we should do this again."

Charles scrambled to stand on his own - even through his jacket, each curve of Erik's fingers scalded like a brand.

"Do - what? This? Drinking with my students?" he said. "Oh, no. No, no. No. I really don't think—"

"We should do it again," Erik said, smiling again, and wasn't it unnerving. "Only I think we should add a little something to it."

"A little something?" Charles asked cautiously. Erik's ideas were always interesting, rarely moral, never safe, and always, always Charles wished his mother had dipped his curiosity in the river Styx instead of leaving it so vulnerable.

"Yes. We should test your _expertise_ ," Erik said, and there was an edge to that word in his teeth and his tone that made Charles sigh.

"Erik, I really didn't mean to suggest anything about your education," he said in a rush before the interruption he knew was coming, even without reaching into Erik's mind.

The buttons on his jacket shivered in the breezeless air.

"We should test your expertise," Erik continued, ignoring him entirely. "Against my lack thereof. We go down to the pub"—he started walking again, pulling Charles along—"and we count."

"Count?" Yes, Charles had gone to Oxford, yes, he had a doctorate, and _yes_ , he was one of the only experts in his field, but there was something about Erik that made him so incredibly slow sometimes.

"Yes, Charles," Erik said patiently. " _Count."_

"Count what?"

"The number of coeds sidling up to you and trying to _lure you in_ with their _knowledge,_ " Erik said smugly, and Charles rolled his eyes.

"All right, you've made your point - it wasn't the best phrasing. I don't know, I'm - I'm tired, I...stop _laughing_ , Erik, it's not—"

"May the best mutant win," Erik said, and then they were at their separate hotel doors, and a silent good night.

 

    Charles was not accustomed to doing this—nights out on the town, in a row. In fact, if he thought about it, he'd only really done it once. And he was rather sure it had been all Raven's fault. It was always Raven's fault. She was the one who had poked and prodded him into checking out that mutant in Oxford, she was the one who'd slyly suggested that he take Erik to his old haunts. "Maybe you'll see that Amy girl," she'd said.

But he didn't want to see Amy. Heterochromia was the last mutation on his mind. His dreams were no longer full of other people's thoughts, but suddenly they had an iron core, invisible fields rippling around the edges.

But how he found himself spending yet _another_ night down at The Boar's Nut (a truly vile name, now that he thought on it (although Erik had found it most amusing) was beyond him. Mulling over his second beer, he largely suspected it had to do with that man in the corner. The one in the sleek black turtleneck, killing would-be pick-up lines in coed's throats with his eyes.

Not that he was intimidated by Erik, or any some such ridiculous thing. No, there was absolutely nothing about the trim line of his waist, or the tilt of his brow, or yes, even the shadowed hipbones that spoke of weapons and danger and other things that Charles had been doing his very best to avoid. Nothing at all.

That second ale had gone down far too fast.

He turned around with the intention of ordering another one, when he found a cold glass pressed to his hand, and a young woman smiling softly in front of him.

"Usually, it's the gentleman who purchases the drink," she said throatily. "But I'm told that evolution is changing everything."

"I—uh." Her hair and her eyes were dark and intense, even in the haze of the bar, her dress clinging to her body. "Evolution certainly seems to be improving on Mother Nature's original blueprints," he said, taking the glass.

She tosses her hair behind her shoulder, bracelets jangling—a jarring sound. “I’m doing my masters in microbiology. Anna Richardson,” she said, holding out her hand.

He took it, briefly. “Charles Xavier. Just finished my doctorate in genetics.”

“A doctorate in genetics? So, Professor—tell me more about evolution."

"Don't call me that, please," Charles said automatically. "I don't teach a class. And evolution happens to be moving in the most subtle of ways."

"For instance..." He searched her face. Narrow nose, overly thin eyebrows, and wide eyes, a soft, pink mouth. "For instance..."

He stared back at his beer. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about her—no phenotype that he could describe and serenade her with.

"Unattached earlobes. And your X-chromosome," he said. "Erm. Both of them."

She blinked.

“They make you – female. The female of the species is usually the one to carry the offspring to term, although in some cases, notably the seahorse, it is the male who does so. In some cases, such as with emperor penguins – ”

 Suddenly, a hand closed around his upper arm and pulled him up from where he was leaning on the bar. “What – ”

We’re leaving,” Erik hissed in his ear, shoving his coat around his shoulders.

They stumbled out of the pub a few very rushed moments later, leaving those in their wake whispering among themselves. Anna Richardson looked at her bracelets, frowning. She could have sworn they’d been burning earlier.

“Thank you,” Charles said fervently, as they walked to the hotel.

“What for?” Erik’s words sounded bitten-off, like crisp bites of apple.

“For saving me back there. I was completely embarrassing myself, I had no idea what to say to her,” Charles said, waving his hands. “X-chromosome? That is genuinely almost an insult! There was nothing…Erik?”

Erik was nearly running, long legs hitting the pavement swiftly and brusquely, eyes fixed on the movement of his feet.

“Well, Erik. I daresay you win,” Charles continued. “They were positively swarming around you, it was…the point is moot. Regardless of how they pursue you, those women are definitely after your _body_ , and not your mind.”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “No, Erik—”

They didn’t speak until they were, again, at their separate hotel doors, the smooth finish of the walls and the ratty carpet belying the silence bursting between them.

“Erik,” Charles said, looking at him. “I’m sorry. It was a thoughtless comment.”

Erik said nothing, but his mouth twisted as his key turned in the lock.

“Erik – ”

“Good night, Charles,” Erik said, but let Charles follow him into his room. His jacket met the spindly desk chair with a soft thump.

“Erik, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply…”

“Charles, I’m hardly the delicate flowers you woo at the bar,” Erik said, voice ragged. “Good night.”

“Well, you’re rather suggesting the opposite, if I may say so,” Charles said crossly, standing awkwardly in the doorframe. “I want to apologize properly, so if you’ll—”

“Sometimes apologizing—”

“—Isn’t enough?” Charles finished sharply for him. “Then what _is_ enough, Erik? What else can I offer you?”

Erik turned from the far side of the room, and walked slowly, measuredly towards Charles, his body like a slat of steel. Finally they stood – nearly toe-to-to—breathing in each other’s frustration but unable to make sense of it.

“Nothing,” Erik said finally. Charles felt the ghost of the word against his lips, and closed his eyes.

The warmth left, and Charles followed it blindly. More intoxicating than any beer, than the bite of any hard liquor was the smoke of Erik’s body, burning in his own anger –

“There is nothing you can offer me, Charles,” he said. Charles opened his eyes. Erik was walking away from him, the perfect line of his back like a Michelangelo but his mind still like an Escher.

For the first time in a very long time, Charles felt despair. There was nothing he could do that would force Erik to turn, face him – tell him what he really wanted. There was no way for Charles to know that the touch on his shoulder, the rare smiles – or rather, there _was_ a way, but that was the problem.

“No,” he said out loud.

Erik turned.

“No, that’s not true. There’s so much out there, Erik. So many more mutants, just waiting to know they’re not alone. I can offer you a chance to tell them, to show them—”

“What makes you think I couldn’t do so without your help?” Erik’s voice is a massive ship through ice, cold, clear.

“It’s not…it’s not about what you could achieve without me, my friend,” Charles said, the idea finally unraveling in his mind like genes unwinding as he spoke the words. “It’s about how much I need you.”

A long moment that stretched like the horizon on a beach.

“I mean, to find and talk to mutants, you know,” Charles started, blushing and gesticulating. “You have much more experience in—”

A whirlwind of movement – him stepping forward, the door shutting behind ( _click_ ) and the bolt falling neatly and Erik’s hands were on his arms, trembling, trembling, and something emerging from Erik so strongly that it slammed against Charles’ mind, and he winced, unable to comprehend—slow, dragging breaths—

“I understand,” Erik said quietly.

The tipping point was long past somewhere in between half-drowning together and half-living until they were together, a hair’s breadth between their mouths, and Charles closed the chasm with his eyes closed.

At first, there was nothing, just the warm press of skin, and then Erik sighed, lips parting. They kissed slowly, trepidation and fear coloring every movement, until in an uncoordinated moment of fate (and wasn’t that ironic) Charles’ tongue touched the corner of Erik’s mouth, wet and absurdly assertive, and then it was a war.

Charles’ hands reached for Erik’s waist, the curve he’d longed to trace—

Erik’s fingers tangled in Charles’ hair, tilting his head so his mouth fell open for Erik—

There was no time, there was only breathing.

Then Erik flung himself away from Charles.

Charles nearly killed him for it. “Erik—Erik—” he panted. Erik was very busy regaining his composure on the other side of the room.

Charles sank onto the bed, watching Erik as he stood by the window. The curtains were closed, there was no light except the low lamp on the table, and Erik’s profile was sharp. Charles saw a million streetlamps and angles pass over that face, all in a blur as he was overcome with what he had just done, and how much sooner he should have done it.

“What—what fools these mortals be,” he said softly against the poetry of the widening abyss, and it indeed flew out into emptiness. “Shakespeare.”

“Academia always solved all your problems, didn’t it, Charles,” Erik said, tone flat.

Charles rose to stand next to Erik—not so close as to frighten him, but close enough to indicate intent. There was an unholy flush spread over his face, a corner of his turtleneck folded to show skin where Charles’ hands had been. God, but he was beautiful, not only in the way the razor labyrinth of his mind folded over Charles’ but also in the way where Charles’ cock was hard in his pants after a _kiss._

“No,” he said carefully. “Academia didn’t solve all my problems. Studying genetics doesn’t mean I know how the mutant…situation will pan out.”

“Can evolution explain this?” Erik asked bitterly, gesturing between them.

“Our mutations? Of course, it’s just a matter of—”

“No,” Erik said, grabbing his hips and pulling him abruptly, awkwardly, forward, so that they rubbed together deliciously for a glorious moment.

“Ah—Erik—” Charles could do nothing but gasp at the friction, clutch at Erik’s arms and rest his head against the expanse of his shoulder.

“Can genetics explain why?” Erik whispered harshly in his ear, pulling him closer still. “Can your precious genetics explain why I want to take you, lay you on the bed, and _fuck_ you—”

With the obscenity, a thrill ran up Charles’ spine, and he let out a small moan. He could feel Erik’s heartbeat, like a rabbit’s, like a rat’s, thundering through to his own, could hear the bellows of Erik’s body heaving as he breathed – could feel the hardness in his pants, pressing so insistently against his own—

“No,” he said against the shell of Erik’s ear. “But does it have to?” 

 “Shouldn’t it?” Erik retorted, sliding his hands further down Charles’ back.

“Not necessarily,” Charles said. “There are many, many things as of yet unexplained – the number _i,_ for instance—”

“Why are you still _talking_ —” Erik pushed him backwards, hands twisted in the collar of his shirt, mouth still tantalizingly out of reach until the back of his knees hit the bed and he fell, Erik crushing him before rising. And they lay there, catching their breath, reveling in the tangle of their legs and the exhilaration in their blood and the curl of Erik’s hand on Charles’ face.

“Kiss me? Please,” Charles said, throat sticking, almost shy.

Erik grinned at him, playful and uninhibited and it took his breath away. Charles moved his hands to the back of Erik’s neck.

“Since you asked so politely.” Erik leaned down, then paused, made him wait, listened for the anticipatory hitch in his breath and smiled when he got it, and then he laid his mouth against Charles’s, moving his hands to creep underneath the button-down shirt. The wet slip of Charles’s tongue, flickering against his teeth and his lips, the way he curled his leg around Erik’s waist, bringing him closer, closer—

Charles didn’t know how he had imagined or felt lust before, but it was nothing like this—he had never felt such a heady rush for _more_ , to tug and pull Erik into a sitting position, bat his hands away, and rip off that turtleneck. The urgent _need_ to press fervent kisses to Erik’s jaw, to taste the dip in his collarbone, rich with salt and heat, it was all new, it was overtaking each of his senses one by one.

“You wear too many clothes,” Erik laughed, a rumble against Charles’s lips as he marked his throat. He could feel Erik’s long fingers slipping each button undone; the edge of a fingernail against his nipple, and he gasped, bit down on Erik’s shoulder, teeth leaving lace-marks of passion across the skin. “Sensitive,” Erik said, and it would have sounded awful on anyone else, but on Erik it sounded as though he was slowly uncovering the eighth wonder of the world.

The shirt came untucked, undone, and finally off, the cardigan joining the turtleneck in a messy corner, and then Erik’s hands were on his ribs, fingers fitting neatly in the spaces between, thumbs rubbing curiously to gauge Charles’ response. A firm press, a flick of the finger across his nipples earned Erik a sharp inhalation and an unrelenting grip across his forearms. Slow circles, the jerk of Charles’ hips, a low keening noise. “And what about—” he lowered his head to taste the flesh, and Charles’ hands came to grip his shoulders. Head thrown back, back lightly arched, knees spread. Erik could die for that image.

They both laughed when Charles twitched violently as Erik’s hand landed on his calf, pulling him until Erik was kneeling with Charles’ legs locked around his waist. “So,” Erik murmured, lips brushing over a fluttering eyelid. “Do those genetics lines work for you, at all?”

“I—ah—Erik.” Charles stuttered as Erik painted pictures with his fingernail across Charles’ bare stomach.

“Would you care to test them out, Professor?” Erik asked.

Charles fixed him with a look. “Don’t call me that,” he said, a smile touching his lips as he traced the line of Erik’s temple to his mouth. “And funnily enough, I can’t seem to think of any.” Erik was leaning down to kiss him again when he said, “Oh! Actually, here’s one: if I were an enzyme, do you know which one I’d be?”

“No, Charles,” Erik drawled, rolling his eyes. “I don’t.”

“I’d be helicase, so that I could unzip your genes.” Pause. “It doesn’t quite work in this context, because neither of us are wearing jeans, so the pun – ”

Erik blinked, and a rough noise, and Charles’ pants were unbuttoned and unzipped.

“Perhaps you’re helicase,” Charles mused.

 “Perhaps,” Erik said indulgently, sliding his hands to push off Charles’ trousers. “But that’s a rather long name to be screaming in bed, don’t you think?”

Charles only laughed and moved to undo Erik’s belt—“I’m a gentleman, I’ll do it by hand”—and finally, they were completely unclothed and leaning against each other.

“I’m not—”

“Shh, Erik.” Charles quieted him with a finger to his lips. “Just feel. I know I think too much, and so do you, but just—look.”

 So Erik sat back for a moment and did, he _looked_ at Charles—the high flush in his cheeks and the edges of his mouth, the skate of his nose, the thin, white limbs, and narrow chest tapering down to the hollows of his hips and the jut of his cock, hard, leaking. He wondered where Charles had learned this easy confidence with his body, as Charles said, “I do this a lot, thinking of you” and grasped his cock, mouth falling open, eyes closing with the even strokes.

And this is—difficult. Wanting the hard planes of Charles’ body, wanting, wanting the forbidden. He was not sure what compelled him, but he touched Charles’ wrist (let me), and shifted Charles legs and before he could think about it (just feel), he leant to taste the head of Charles’ cock.

It was almost synesthesia – tasting but not tasting at all because the moan that burst from Charles was utterly lewd and so gratifying he felt it heavy in his nose, on his tongue. Erik moved his mouth, slowly, carefully, licking, kissing, sucking, stroking. Exploring Charles’ body as he had so often imagined but never foreseen.Little catching noises as Charles choked on sound—“Yes, Erik, yes”—and the scrabble for purchase of Charles’ hands on the sheets and in Erik’s hair, and Erik grew bolder, taking Charles in slowly, letting his mouth drip with the taste of Charles, the feel of the fullness in his mouth, the jitter in Charles’ breathing, the pinch of a tug on his hair. There was something about physically pulling those sounds from Charles with every slide of his mouth—about rending the tapestry of Charles’ words to shreds until he was, indeed, chanting Erik’s name, a mantra carved into his heart as he let his hands wander, brushing against the inside of Charles thighs and the base of his cock until Charles was shouting, so loudly—“Erik…!” (The neighbors and their neighbors know his name). This must be what it’s like to fall apart. Knees drawing up and hands tensing and tendons standing and he was spurting into Erik’s mouth, bitter warmth flooding Erik’s senses and dripping over his chin (it was hard to know what to do with it), even as he went to kiss Charles.   

 It was messy, but neither of them cared about perfection too much—tastes and emotions melding as Charles twined his arms about Erik’s neck and his knee was in Erik’s side, Erik’s fingers gripping Charles’ upper arm and hip too hard, regaining their breathing. “Thank you,” Charles mumbled against Erik’s mouth. “Thank you.”

Erik was gasping with bewilderment and adrenaline and the feel and sound of Charles still. “Any time?”

The lights flickered as Erik strained and Charles looked up at him, dark and almost hunted. There was a silence like two streaks of lightning hitting each other midair, catch, fall, shudder.

“I might take you up on that,” Charles said finally with a quirk of a smile. “Although not for a while. Evolution has unfortunately determined that we have a refractory period in which – ”

Erik snorted.

“ – which means, Erik, and I find you’ll be less skeptical now, that it’s _your_ turn.”

And with a wicked smile and easy grace laid before him, Erik acquiesced. 


End file.
